Crushed
by Zarine
Summary: What happened at the playground after Lily and Petunia left, the first time Severus met them?  It's a pretty fluffy, one-shot piece, more to see if it's worth me attempting to write anymore... :  Reviews, comments and criticism appreciated.


Severus sat on the swing, his too-big black overcoat flapping in the breeze, trailing his feet on the ground as he swung back and forth. He'd been watching her for weeks, and when he'd tried to talk to her, he'd messed it all up. She hated him now, before she'd ever even gotten the chance to know him. Her name was Lily, he knew, and her annoying Muggle sister was Petunia. He knew that she wouldn't talk to him again – she was too pretty to talk to him anyway. He groaned softly to himself. 'Why did I do that?' he thought. 'Why didn't I just stay hidden?' He quickly rubbed at his eyes before the tears that were threatening had a chance to fall.

"Are you okay?" a sweet voice asked quietly. He jumped out of the swing quickly – it was her, she'd come back! - and turned around to face her.

"Of course I am. I'm just... tired, is all." She continued to look at him. "My parents – they fight sometimes. Well, a lot really. And sometimes it's too loud to sleep. But it doesn't matter," he said harshly. He looked into her eyes and saw sympathy there, and turned away bitterly.

"I'm Lily."

"Severus." He turned back around to face her again, now sitting in the swing he'd just vacated, and saw, to his relief, that the pity was gone from her bright green eyes.

"Severus? Are you really... a wizard?" She blushed slightly at having asked him such a stupid question. He looked at her thoughtfully for a minute, then sat down on the swing next to hers.

"It's real, you know. The school, Hogwarts, is a big castle in Scotland, charmed to look like dangerous ruins to Mug- er, non-magic people, so they won't go near it. Diagon Alley, in London, is where you'll go to buy everything you need for school, like your wand, and an owl, if you want your own."

"An owl?"she laughed. "Why would I buy an owl? I would think that an owl would be a dreadful pet – loud at night, and miserable in a cage."

Severus smiled, enjoying her laughter. "Lots of people take owls – they're dead useful," he explained. "They deliver your mail for you. There's an Owlrey on school grounds so that they don't have to stay cooped up in a cage all the time, and the school has owls if you don't want to get one, but having your own owl means that you never have to wait to send something, and other people can give it something to give you."

She thought for a moment, absentmindedly swinging her feet back and forth to swing higher and higher, and he kept pace with her silently. She glanced over at him and he saw a twinkle of mischief in her eyes; then she was sailing slowly over the park and landing on her feet several feet away. Severus smiled to himself; then he too jumped off his swing, landing on his feet a little bit beyond where she was standing. Lily laughed delightedly. "Oh, you can do it, too!"

"Of course I can. I told you it's real. All of it."

"How will we get there – to Hogwarts?" she asked with a slight hitch to her voice. Was she nervous to go? Or was the hitch for him? No, that was stupid, he told himself. Someone as pretty and talented as her would never want to be his girlfriend, or even his friend. He was too awkward, too skinny, too – he flinched inwardly as the thought hit him – too _ugly_. He thought of his hooked nose, that hadn't been quite as bad looking until his Muggle father had broken it and refused to let his mother fix it with magic. His skin was pale, but not the healthy creamy color that Lily's was; rather, he looked as though he had been stuck underground for most of his life. He had scrounged the ill-fitting Muggle clothes he was wearing out of a charity bin – he didn't have any of his own, as his mother didn't want him mingling with Muggles – after all, no good had come from her tolerance. The only Muggle she knew beat her unmercifully, and their son as well, because he was jealous of their power. If only –

"Severus?" Lily said softly. "Are you all right?" She was looking at him with concern, and he realized that he hadn't answered her question.

"Of course I am." he said angrily. She stood up warily at his tone, and he quickly tried to remember what she had asked him. "I'm - I'm sorry, I was – thinking..." he trailed off, his face red, and then shook his head slightly. "We'll take the Hogwarts Express, from King's Cross."

"A train? Really?" Lily sounded slightly disappointed, and Severus snorted quietly. "What were you expecting, a magic carpet?"

She blushed furiously. Severus noticed that her freckles practically disappeared when she had a bit of color in her face. "Er... I don't know, really, but a train seems so... ordinary."

"It won't seem ordinary at all to _you_," he promised her. He was so confused. Why should this Muggleborn witch have this power over him, the power to make him feel like the world was a good place, when it wasn't? The world is a terrible place, where a father can beat his son for the crime of being a wizard, and no one can stop him... Where a mother can be beaten for simply trying to stop her husband beating her son... Why did he feel like Lily had the power to make it all go away? Why did he feel the need to be near her, to be _nice_ to her? He looked at her, and noticed that she looked sad. He stood and faced her. "What's the matter?" he asked, hoping that the answer wasn't him.

"Tuney... She's mad at me. She's – she's jealous." Lily looked down at the ground when she said this, and Severus sighed with relief, that it wasn't _him_ making her look like that, and saw her lashes resting against her pale skin, such long lashes... And then he realized how upset she was, and he found himself furious that Petunia would dare to do anything to make Lily – _his_ Lily – unhappy. He took a step forward and unthinkingly put his hand in hers. She gasped slightly, and he cringed – what had he _done_? - and pulled his hand back quickly.

"Sorry," he muttered, avoiding her gaze, his face red. And then it was his turn to gasp when she put her hand in his, and smiled at him. Those green eyes found his, and he found himself smiling back at her, noticing the pale blush that had spread across her cheeks...


End file.
